Friday, July 20, 2012

ADVENTURES OF THUNDERSTORM: RETURN OF THOR (2011)

Somewhere in Canada, two scientists are busy working in a tiny office on a government funded project to create a cosplay Thor costume. I guess Canada can afford to throw money away on stuff like this since they don’t spend trillions on national defense. By an incredible coincidence, scientist Grant happens to be a descendent of Thor. By an even more incredible coincidence, Thor himself needs to inject an earthly relative of his with the ability to shoot Photoshop lightning balls in order to save the world or whatever, and since Grant happens to be working on a Thor costume for unrelated reasons, why not. Seems like a good fit.

Some bald, faux-Anton LaVey douchebag transforms some hot chick into an evil cosplay lady that shoots red Photoshop electricity. They team up to attempt to kill the gods by starting Ragnarok (the “twilight of the gods”) because…I don’t know why*. I guess it’s a pretty metal thing to do, so why not*. However, not only are these gods not worshipped by anyone who isn’t a LARPer, they are really just photos that are shaken in front of a new age screensaver. Anyway, I guess it’s bad for the universe if these talking photos are blowed up, so we need some dude in spandex (named “Thunderstorm” instead of “Thor Jr.”) to take care of beeswax.

In order for the villains to complete their quest, they need to reconstruct the “dragon’s cross”, a piece of which they have to steal from an art gallery. A young female cop in street clothes investigates the robbery, and becomes entangled with Grant/Thunderstorm in his quest to stop the evil pair and their henchmen. She lacks a superpower though, unless you count being the only halfway decent actor in the movie a superpower.

Here is a scene of drama. You can tell because our hero takes off his helmet in order to show off some emotionalism.

Will good overcome evil? Will the gods survive? I’m sure you probably don’t care, as I probably don’t care. In fact, I can’t muster up the energy to figure out whether or not I care. The movie is largely people (most of whom can’t act) standing around in some very generic location (like an office or a parking lot) providing endless exposition without actually setting up a story that has any stakes. Thunderstorm’s sense of duty amounts to “well, I guess I’m supposed to, so…”, where as the villain wants to destroy the gods just because I guess. It should be said that some of this endless exposition is hard to hear because it is drowned out by the new age hero Casio score, and the god dialogue is also drowned out with some very shoddy reverb effect, making it virtually unintelligible. There is also a 3000 word crawl at the beginning of the film that tries to explain the Norse mythological background of the story, but instead of clarifying, it will mostly just give you a headache.

The biggest take away from this film is that I don’t know why someone would make a serious version of the comic book Thor for $5,000 with a script that is mostly stuffed with mangled exposition. Yes, I know it’s REALLY made to cash in on the Hollywood movie, but you can still make a vaguely entertaining ripoff for no money. God only knows how you would achieve that, but I imagine it might be possible. You could make it stupid or humorous, or be self-aware about it being an impossibly cheap superhero movie. There is a moment where the female detective asks our hero why he’s driving a crappy car, and he defends it by mentioning that the car is electric. However, I think this is less a self-aware comment on shoddy superheroes than an honest stab at humor. The movie does have several stabs at humor which feel vaguely Canadian. Granted, they aren’t funny, but it has that Canadian comedy feel of being pleasantly odd instead of crass, mean spirited, or overly literal. So, that was something I noticed. I have to find something to think about while I’m watching horseshit like this.

*I think the lady villain might be a god herself, worshipped by the main villain and his cronies, and they want to kill the other gods in order to be the only game in town, I guess.

P.S. This was written as part of Project Terrible, hosted by Alec at Mondo Bizarro. This particular choice was selected by Robert over at Gaming Creatively. Check 'em out!

Can I pass on this? I've been offered something like this before, but I don't get these chain letter awards. It would just be a massive homework assignment to me. I never did like chain letters. Sorry, I guess I'm just a cranky fuddy duddy. I hope that's okay.

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How easy it would be to wade among the bushes and lie face down in the warm water till oblivion came. There would be a certain gurgling or choking unpleasantness at first, but it would soon be over. Then, the long, peaceful night of non-existence. What I had enjoyed from the mythical start of eternity till the 20th of August 1890. More and more I looked at the river on drowsy sun-golden summer afternoons. I liked to think of the beauty of the sun and blue river and green shores and distant white steeple as enfolding me at the last. It would be as if the element of mystical cosmic beauty were dissolving me, and yet certain elements -notably scientific curiosity and a sense of world drama- held me back. Much in the universe baffled me, yet I knew I could pry the answers out of books if I lived and studied longer. Things have learned to walk that ought to crawl.